January 26th:
Hotel move day! We set an alarm as there was an early bead collecting conservation activity Heather and the kids wanted to do before we left. They went to do that and I stayed in the room and finished up packing.
After they go back they only had 3 more activities left to go to complete the full collection but at least those ones were late morning / afternoon activities and we could come back and do those easier – so we made plans to do that later in the week.
We then took our bags over to bell services to have the luggage transferred over to the Boardwalk Villas.
After that we did another wander around the resort and let the kids buy small African drums as a souvenir of the stay at the resort.
We decided we didn’t want to pay for a cab over to Boardwalk Villas so we hopped a bus to Hollywood Studios instead. We got off the bus at the park and took the walk way to the Boardwalk area and checked into the hotel. Our room was not ready yet but they were able to get everything else set up and they said we would get a text when the room was ready. Note for Canadians – it doesn’t look like the texting to a Canadian cell number works for the room check in.
We then walked the Boardwalk area to International Gateway at Epcot, went through security and rented a locker so we could put down the African drums for a while!
First stop in Epcot was the Canada pavilion where they were giving out Disney buttons with “Canada 150” on them in celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017.
Next we had to test out one of the perks of full DVC membership by going into the DVC Members Lounge in Epcot. It is located in the glass pyramid above the Imagination with Figment ride. The space has a great vibe and the free snacks and drinks were a nice bonus. We sat and absorbed the atmosphere for a while.
We decided that we would head over to Test Track and use up one of the special fast pass tickets we had been given the other day at the DVC Center. Before we got on the ride though it had to shut for a maintenance issue. The kids were pretty upset unfortunately.
So we went into MouseGears to do some shopping and to stick close to the ride in case it came up quickly. We ended up getting T a nice sweater that he still wears constantly now that we are at home.
Heather also bought all the Dooney and Burke.
Well, not really but she did get some crazy deals and somehow managed to convince me to let her use the e-gift card I had from runDisney due to the Walt Disney World Half Marathon being cancelled earlier in the month.
Heather was looking at the purses and one of the cast members mentioned that the Food and Wine bags were 30%, plus 20% off for annual passholders, plus my e-gift card equals two purses apparently.
We also got a couple fuzzy blankets (as per tradition) and had it all shipped to the hotel.
We then did Spaceship Earth and walked back out to the Boardwalk area to grab a pizza from the pizza window there. We picked up our stuff from the locker at International Gateway on our way.
Surprisingly we still hadn’t gotten the text to tell us our room was ready (which is how we found out that texts to Canadian numbers don’t work) so we wandered back to the hotel and found that our room was ready.
The room was great with a true boardwalk view on the 4th floor – straight view to the lighthouse and the Beach Club Resort. It was also just a short walk down stairs to the pool area and a different set of stairs to end up on the Boardwalk itself. The Boardwalk exit that was closest to our room was an exit only but it sure made it fast to get to the Boardwalk instead of waiting for the elevators.
We then decided to go swimming in the clown pool for a bit – probably 45 minutes there and several trips down the water slide for the kids and a few for Heather and I.
Then back up to the room and called to get our luggage brought up.
Our daughter K did a change over to her Elsa dress and we did a fast walk to Epcot to get into our Frozen Ever After fastpass just about 10 minutes before they expired.
After that we were able to get on Test Track to make up for the disappointment from earlier in the day.
Then a quick snack before heading onto Ellen’s Energy Adventure and then a wander over to do the Nemo ride.
After Nemo we watched the fish and the divers in the aquarium for a while before heading into Coral Reef for our supper reservation. The food was great although T seemed to get a bit of a tough steak.
We spent time on supper and ended up missing Illuminations unfortunately.
We then decided to end the day, so we walked out to the Boardwalk and picked up some items for breakfast the next morning and to keep in the fridge from the store.
Put the kids to bed, did a quick unpack and organize and then went to bed ourselves.